Peace and conflict studies

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Peace and conflict studies can be defined as the inter-disciplinary inquiry into war as human condition and peace as human potential, as an alternative to the traditional Polemology (War Studies) and the strategies taught at Military academies. Important aims are: Prevention, deescalation, and solution of international conflicts; Prevention of war. Disciplines involved may include Political Sciences, Sociology, Psychology, History, Anthropology, Religious Studies, Women's Studies, and Indigenous Studies, as well as a variety of others.

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[edit] The emergence of Peace Studies as an academic discipline

The First World War was a turning point in Western attitudes to war. The expression "the war to end all wars" reflected the traumatic events and subsequent flu epidemic. US President Woodrow Wilson had been responsible for taking the USA into the war and this coincided with the emergence of the USA as a major world power. At the 1919 Peace of Paris where the leaders of France, Britain and the USA (Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Wilson) met to decide the future of Europe, Woodrow Wilson proposed Fourteen Points. These included breaking up European empires into nation states and the establishment of the League of Nations. These moves, intended to ensure a peaceful future, were the background to a number of developments in the emergence of Peace Studies as an academic discipline.

The Department of International Politics was established in the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1919. David Davis was the first "Woodrow Wilson Chair". The first blow to Wilson's peaceful vision was the rejection of US membership of the League of Nations by Congress. The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of fascism and military dictatorships. Mussolini, Hitler, Francisco Franco and Stalin all came to power and militarism was on the rise in Japan. International relations became increasingly dominated by the realists and dealt mainly with the international politics of power between states. Examples of peaceful figures were seen as unrealistic in the face of aggressive dictators. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain followed a policy of appeasement in an attempt to temper the aggressive ambitions of Hitler. A strong opposing view was that the West should confront Hitler and build up forces to match German rearmament.

After the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War the United States was in a unique position of being the only nuclear power. The gap was soon closed when the USSR acquired nuclear weapons in 1949. At the emergence of the Cold War, Peace and Conflict Studies was be the normative academic subject no longer represented by the broadly realist International Relations.

[edit] Peace Studies: The subject defined

Peace Studies can be classified as such:

  • Multidisciplinary, encompassing elements of Politics, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology and Economics.
  • Multilevel. Peace Studies examines intrapersonal peace, peace between individuals, neighbours, ethnic groups, states and civilisations.
  • Multicultural. Gandhi is often cited as a paradigm of Peace Studies. However, true multiculturalism remains an aspiration as most Peace Studies centres are located in the West.
  • Both analytic and normative. As a normative discipline, Peace Studies involves value judgements, such as "better" and "bad".
  • Both theoretical and applied. Peace Studies is useless if not applied to the outside world.

[edit] Approaches

The nascent subject was an intellectual enterprise built around an idea - peace. However, peace and conflict studies is now established within the social sciences: it comprises scholarly journals, college and university departments, peace research institutes, conferences, as well as outside recognition of the utility of peace and conflict studies as a method. For example, the University of Bradford established a Chair of Peace Studies in 1972 and now boasts its own Peace Studies department. In the 1960s the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute was endowed by the Swedish government. More recently a Centre for Peace Studies, to do Peace Research and coordinate the Master's in Peace and Conflict Transformation was established at the University of Tromsø, Norway in 2002, and a year later a master's programme in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Oslo.

Three conceptions of peace have been instrumental in establishing an intellectual climate in which peace research might prosper. The first is the line of rational reasoning that peace is a natural condition, whereas war is not. The premise is simple for peace researchers: to generate and present enough information so that a rational group of decision makers will seek to avoid war and conflict. Second, the theistic view that war is to be generally avoided is commonly held and is particularly common among Quakers. Third is pacifism: the view that peace is to be a prime force in human behaviour.

[edit] Direct, Structural and Cultural Violence

Johan Galtung's conflict triangle works on the assumption that the best way to define peace is to define violence, its antithesis. It reflects the normative aim of preventing, managing, limiting and overcoming violence.

  • Direct (overt) violence. E.g. direct attack, massacre.
  • Structural violence. Death by avoidable reasons such as malnutrition. Structural violence is indirect violence caused by an unjust structure and is not to be equated with an act of God. Hurricane Katrina, which struck the USA in 2005, was a so-called "act of God", but the deaths in the poorer black population of New Orleans are an example of structural violence, since their deaths were related to the inbalances in society.
  • Cultural violence. Cultural violence occurs as a result of the cultural assumptions that blind one to direct or structural violence. For example, one may be indifferent toward the homeless, or even consider their expulsion or extermination a good thing.

Each corner of Galtung's triangle can relate to the other two. Ethnic cleansing can be an example of all three.


[edit] Negative and Positive Peace

Negative peace refers to the absence of direct violence. This aim raises the problem of the tyrant, who oversees a non-violent empire but does not foster a sense of peace. Parallels of this problem are to be found in literature such as 1984 by George Orwell.

Positive peace refers to the additional absence of structural and cultural violence. This aim raises the problem of the "happy slave", who when told he is free, retorts that he "does not want to be free".

Three normative aims of Peace Studies are peacekeeping, peace building (e.g. tackling disparaties in the distribution of world wealth) and peacemaking (e.g. eduation). Peacekeeping falls under the aegis of negative peace, whereas efforts toward positive peace involve elements of peace building and peacemaking.

[edit] Quotes related to Peace Studies

  • "War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention" - Henry Maine
  • "Would it not be wise to endow the science of peace with strong schools just as one has its sister the departments of war?" - Rafael Dubois
  • "Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war." - Maria Montessori

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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